# A useful first attempt

This case is **entirely constructed**. The people and the numbers are fictional. They show how to prepare, run and check a first attempt.

Mariam is a student. Her aunt runs a small fabric shop. All day, customers send messages to ask whether a fabric is in stock, in which colours, at what price. Her aunt answers each one by hand, between sales.

## Understanding before building

Mariam spends a Saturday afternoon in the shop. She counts twenty-three messages asking about stock. Her aunt keeps the stock in a notebook. Mariam asks what customers really want to know: whether a fabric is there, the colours, the price per metre.

## The attempt, in one hour

That evening, Mariam builds a shared list with an AI: fabric, colours, price per metre, in stock or not. The AI also drafts a short message her aunt can send with the link.

- **Person helped:** her aunt, and the customers who ask.
- **Problem observed:** 23 stock questions in one afternoon, answered by hand.
- **Assumption:** a list customers can check themselves will cut the questions.
- **Attempt:** send the link to the ten customers who ask most often.
- **Effort:** one hour to build, twenty minutes with her aunt to fill it in.
- **What could go wrong:** the list goes out of date. Her aunt updates it every evening at closing.
- **What we look at:** stock questions per day, for one week.

## What changes in the first week

On the first day, two customers say the link will not open on their phone: it asks them to create an account. Mariam changes the sharing setting in two minutes.

By the end of the week, stock questions drop from about twenty a day to eight. Several customers now ask for a fabric by the name it has in the list.

> **Observed:** stock questions from about 20 to 8 a day, over one week, with 10 customers who had the link.
>
> **Not known yet:** whether it holds when her aunt is busy and forgets an update.
>
> **Decision:** keep it, send the link to every regular customer, and look again in a month.

## Handing it over

Mariam shows her aunt how to update the list and add a new fabric. Her aunt does it alone the next evening. Mariam's part ends there.

She writes a short post about what she did, with the template list, so other small shops can copy it.

For your first attempt: one person, one problem you can see, a version in an hour, one week of looking. The [templates](/templates/) help you prepare it. The cards [Talk to the person who has the problem](/book/chapters/04-01-talk-to-the-person-who-has-the-problem.html) and [Trying costs less than asking](/book/chapters/05-05-trying-costs-less-than-asking.html) explain the choices behind it.